


The Significance of DTR

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 08:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6111485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke doesn't realize that Bellamy thinks they're dating, so she just keeps pining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Significance of DTR

**Author's Note:**

> Short and fluffy, just how I like it.

In Clarke’s opinion, it’s really unfair to blame her for not noticing that she’s dating Bellamy.

It’s not like she doesn’t _want_ to be dating Bellamy. She’s been in love with Bellamy for years; _everyone_ knows she wants to be dating Bellamy, except Bellamy himself.

They’ve all confronted her about it, ranging from tense conversations (Octavia) to casual, almost daily references to her patheticness (Raven).

Once when she was drunk, she even spilled her guts to Wells on Skype. They’ve had plenty of discussions about her love life since he confessed his feelings for her and she turned him down just before they went to college, and she knows she probably wouldn’t have gotten through Finn and Lexa in such quick succession without him. They just don’t normally talk about _his_ feelings for her, no matter how far in the past it happened. But she and Wells both know Drunk Clarke isn’t as delicate with difficult subjects as Sober Clarke is.

“How do you stop loving someone who doesn’t love you back?” She’d slurred at him, transfixed by the darkness of the little box where her face normally was. Finding the light switch had proved to be too much of a challenge, so her face looked ghostly, illuminated by nothing but her screen.

“I don’t know, Clarkey,” Wells says, his voice gentle. If she’d been more sober, she might have noticed the long pause before his answer. “Is this about Bellamy?”

“You don’t even live on this coast,” she groans, covering her face with her hands. “How does everybody know?”

“I’m your best friend, I’m supposed to know these things. But the way you talk about him is kind of like a huge neon sign I can see from three thousand miles away.”

The thing is, even Clarke’s friends she’s not as close with have called her out on it. Miller, who was Bellamy’s friend first, brought Monty and a six pack over when Bellamy started dating Gina.

“What’s this for?” Clarke had asked when Miller had thrust the beer into her hands and bypassed her to go straight to the Nintendo. If she’d spent the afternoon moping around her apartment, she wasn’t going to let Miller know that.

“For drinking, obviously,” Miller had responded, passing a controller to Monty and holding one out to Clarke. “If you don’t know that, you’re in worse shape than I thought.” Clarke gave him an unimpressed look and he’d caved. “It’s their third date tonight,” he said, his voice careful. Three dates had been unprecedented in all the time Clarke had known Bellamy, and clearly Miller thought it was serious too, or he wouldn’t have shown up.

“I guess kicking your asses would make me feel better,” she’d said, and Monty had cued up GTA.

“I don’t see how it could hurt,” Miller agreed.

Clarke knows Bellamy to be straightforward, even blunt sometimes. He’s good with words, good with women, and honest to a fault. He can’t even lie with his face, which has come in handy for her in the past. But all of these traits amount to Clarke figuring that if he’d ever wanted anything more than friendship from her, he would have said something.

She’d felt guilty for her intense relief when he and Gina broke up, when he was obviously hurt and sad about it. But the breakup was a catalyst for a major shift in her friendship with Bellamy, so she didn’t have much time to dwell on whether she could be a good friend and be in love with him at the same time.

He’d gotten himself drunk in his heartbreak; Clarke had gotten drunk too, partially out of solidarity and partially because he was venting and it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to listen to him go on and on about another woman.

“I need to find Raven,” he’d sighed into his drink.

“Raven?” Clarke was confused. Had they been talking about Raven? She thought they’d been talking about Gina.

“She owes me one,” he slurred, pushing the drink away and gesturing at the bartender for the check.

“What are you talking about?”

“She slept with me to get over Finn.”

“Yeah, and it didn’t help.” Clarke’s voice had come out fiercer than she’d wanted, but it was bad enough to think of Bellamy with one woman who wasn’t her. He wasn’t supposed to go look for comfort from somebody else. As his best friend, that was supposed to be her job.

“Still,” he said, trying to shrug in nonchalance. “It’s worth a try.”

“What about me?” She’d blurted out, freezing when his beautiful brown eyes locked in on hers. They’d widened in shock and something else. Want, maybe.

“What _about_ you?” His voice was so low she could barely hear it over the din of the crowd. She pushed herself off her stool and placed a hand on his chest to steady herself when the room spun.

“I’m right here,” she said, stepping closer.

He’d kissed her so hard she thought her lips would bruise, and the sex was angrier, rougher than Clarke had ever pictured it being. But it was Bellamy, and she’d never wanted anyone so much.

At this point, they’ve been sleeping together casually for almost six months.

Their friends all know and have all warned her about it. Wells is worried she’s setting herself up to get her heart broken, while Raven is worried she’s keeping herself from moving on. Clarke isn’t sure Octavia has any specific worries, but knows that the younger Blake sticks by her general prediction of a catastrophic end. Miller’s warnings have mostly been that the walls in their apartment are thin and he doesn’t want to hear whatever’s going on in the adjacent room, but Clarke thinks that’s his way of expressing concern.

For her part, Clarke’s heart is breaking a little every day, and she is aware that she’s in for a big break in the not-too-distant future. She and Bellamy haven’t talked much about their arrangement, and she hasn’t slept with anyone else since she started sleeping with him, but besides the sex they’re the same as they’ve always been. They still get coffee a lot and talk about life, they're still making their way through  _Downton Abbey_ together even though he pretends he's not interested, he even came with her to her mom's birthday party when she wasn't sure she could handle Abby's coworkers on her own. They’re friends, best friends, who spend a ton of time together. And then sleep together.

It’s fine.

She’s fine.

So she’s caught very much off guard when Bellamy says one night, as he unwraps the takeout he brought over, “You’re still free Friday, right? I’ve got that work party, and one of my coworkers I don’t hate said she wants to meet you. Someone made bingo cards and one of her squares is going to be, ‘Murphy makes a coworker’s significant other yell at him.’ From what she’s heard about you she thinks that’ll be a gimme.”

“Um,” Clarke says, because she’s still stuck in the middle of his sentence and isn’t quite sure how to respond. Bellamy looks expectantly up at her.

“If it helps convince you,” he smiles, coming closer to wrap his arms around her waist, “I also think this would be the perfect occasion to use the purse with the secret flask compartment Jasper gave you for Christmas.”

“Um,” she says again, because even after the past six months she hasn’t gotten used to being this close to him, still finds it a kind of heady experience. “Am I your significant other?”

His eyes are unreadable, his expression dissolving into something more cautious.

“You’re pretty significant. I didn’t think that was news.” he says, loosening his hold like she’s going to pull away from it.

“It is, though. News to me. I thought this was just casual for you.”

Hurt ricochets across his face and now he’s the one trying to break out of her arms. She tightens her hold.

“It’s not casual for me,” she says, letting her hands follow the ridge of his spine up and down his back, reassuring. “I’d really like to be your significant other. I’d just also like for us to be on the same page about it.”

“I don’t know,” he sighs dramatically, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His expressions are like a favorite book: familiar, easy to read, always drawing her back in. She’s really hoping he finally caught up to where she’s been the whole time. “Being ambiguous does keep things interesting.”

“Yeah, we really _something_ to spice things up,” she snorts, and he kisses her just long enough to take her breath away.

“So we’re agreed, then?” He asks, still a little unsure. “You’re my significant other. End of ambiguity.”

“I’ll probably just use the term ‘girlfriend,’” she muses, kissing him again and stepping away to unpack the food. She can almost _feel_ his smile behind her, the power of it warming her to her core. “But ‘significant’ works too.”


End file.
